Children in Tow

During our last few days in Barcelona, we really started to feel like locals. Of course, we were still not effortlessly chic and glamorous, but we could get around town easily and even started visiting places more than once. And we have settled in long enough to host an actual guest from another part of Europe! Cue in visit from Isha, a dear friend of mine from my hometown in NJ: East Brunswick. We met when we were young teens and have stayed in touch through the years (thank goodness!). Isha now lives in Basel, Switzerland after spending 2 years in Paris, France, which is of course our favorite European city. Our lives have oddly intertwined over the years, despite our many individual moves, which I think gives our relationship a sense of magical destiny.

As Clark mentioned, before Isha’s arrival on the 20th of July, we learned an oddly great amount of information about the seafaring history of Spain and particularly Barcelona. I loved this re-creation of the first ship to circumnavigate the world, the Victoria, which was accomplished by the Spaniards, and which proved the earth was not flat after all. Ahh nautical science!! What a crazy, dangerous, scurvy filled tour that must have been. As I admired the ship, Meera shed a single tear during our selfie as she was thinking about nautical history.

This was then followed by our own seafaring adventure, a 90 minute boat ride around the port and into the Mediterranean Sea. We all LOVED it.

We then had dinner and retired to our home as we awaited Isha’s arrival. The kids went to bed and Isha finally got in around 10pm. The 3 of us excitedly caught up on our lives. Isha and I went out for some tapas and went to bed late at night, as one is required to do of course under such circumstances. Everyone was duly impressed at my ability to stay awake and be social.

The next day we got up at a reasonable hour (9am) and got out the door in order to get breakfast at the Boqueria, something we had been trying to do all trip but never woke up early enough for. We then wandered around the Gothic quarter and went to Palau Guell located in the Raval neighborhood; this is a mansion designed by Antoni Gaudí for the industrial tycoon Eusebi Güell and built between 1886 and 1888. It was impressive although a bit dark and forbidding at times. What I also found impressive is that the house-now-museum had a baby carrier to lend to us!!! I have never seen that before. They also stored our stroller and bags and gave us an audio tour to listen to as we wandered free through the house.

The classic Gaudi chimneys were featured of course, which gave the rooftop a whimsical tone. Here we are with our personal matching chimney tops:

We then headed to Barceloneta where we enjoyed some drinks at the beach while Soren played in the sand. We tried to take the big cable car but the line was too long…as there are only 2 cars running and a long queue of people. So we headed home to re-group and found a vegetarian tapas restaurant called Sesamo. Clark was of course suspicious of any place that did not serve jamon but he actually found the restaurant to begin with and the food was delicious and inventive. This theme continued as Isha and I went onto our 2nd and final dining destination, the famous restaurant Tickets. Clark made reservations 2 months ago and since we lost our sitter (my mom was supposed to come on the trip) and Isha arrived, the two of us got to go! Thank you Clark!!! Did I mention I have the most wonderful husband? He not only got us to the best restaurant in Barcelona, he also took the kids home and got them into bed at a reasonable hour and was genuinely happy that Isha and I had such a wonderful night out on the town. Tickets is #32 on 2018’s top 50 restaurants. It is a tapas, or small plates, based dining experience that is supposed to be more accessible to the commoner (cue in Isha and Swathi) with the features of molecular gastronomy that make El Bulli the world’s best restaurant for a long time. And it was amazing!!! We were seated, and the waiter basically asked us our specifications (we said some vegetarian, seafood and little to no red meat) and told us that they will just start bringing out dishes and when we were done we just let them know. Technically we were given a menu but we returned it to them right away as it was, well, kind of pointless. We also had a sommelier who made 2 awesome cocktails for us to start off with.  What an experience! So many flavors in our mouths! I guess that was the point. Here are some highlights.

We started off with a  “tea” version of gazpacho, which is a cold tomato soup.

Then I got to really experience the sensation of eating an olive with…a fake olive. But it was the more “olive” than an actual “olive.” That is what they do in their magical kitchen.

And yes if you do the math…Isha and I had by the end of the night been out dining for well over 4 hours that evening. Gotta love Barcelona!

The next day we went to the Gracia neighborhood to eat at a family friendly restaurant for breakfast followed by shopping before we headed back closer to home. There were very few if any tourists in this area and we sort of just blended in and had an amazing time. As in, we literally blended in with this weird Frida Kahlo mural:

Isha and our children got along great and we all had a fabulous time!
We then went to rooftop lounge for some R&R and relaxed at home before saying goodbye to Isha.

The next day was our last full day in Barcelona. We went to the beach (Nova Icaria again) and to my favorite vegetarian tapas restaurant again before coming home to put the kids to bed and pack. We already started missing this wonderful place.

     

Our adventures continue as we board a flight to Hyderabad, India via Dubai. Goodbye perfectly-delicious-partially-carbonated-with-a-slight-hint-of-salt-beverage from Barcelona!  Anyone know if I can get Vichy Catalan or Malavella in the USA?

This is the first of a two-part post catching-up on our last week in Barcelona. I’ll be covering July 18-20 in this post, and Swathi will finish up July 21-24 in the next one.

Our final week in Barcelona has come to an end and we still feel like we just arrived! Although the stay was only two weeks, the experience of discovering the real Barcelona was one of the highlights of the time. In fact, we now style ourselves to be connoisseurs of what is really to love about the city.

Here are a few things we ❤❤:
– Tapas: High expectations were exceeded. Plate after plate of flavor-packed morsels for dinner? Yes please.

– Vichy Catalan:  Slightly fizzy and lightly salty mineral water. Perfect after a hot afternoon walk.
– Churreria San Roman: Slung Soren-approved chocolate churros downstairs -from our apartment. Owner was super friendly.
– Jamón ibérico: cured ham from wild Iberian boars left free to gorge on acorns.
– The 59 bus: After an unfortunate initial encounter (ie Swathi’s stolen iphone), this bus line seemed to appear and whisk us home every time we were worn out.
– Siestas (nothing more to add)
– Shady Avenues: The city is full of tree-lined boulevards and vertiginous apartment building that offered much-needed relief from the sun.

– Playgrounds: Fenced in play areas are pretty much everywhere in the city. Even had one behind our building that you could see from our terrace.

A few things we 👎 ❤:
– Paella: Maybe we were doing it wrong, but we all agreed that paella is basically a lesser version of biriyani. Open to being proven wrong.
– The British: Lots of British bro (and hens) packs coming here for sloppy party weekends. Get it together people!
– Sangria: So sweet it hurts. Probably did it wrong, but we are scared to try again.

On to the run-down…

July 18: Arc de Triomf & Parc de Ciudad
Late brunch  at a place near our apartment followed by naps and putzing around the house. Finally re-launched late afternoon to head to the beautiful Parc de Ciudad. We got a little distracted en route and stumbled across Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf:

The park itself was nice too:

July 19: Montjuïc
To Soren’s delight, there was AMPLE public transportation today. Started off with a Metro/bus combo to get us to Montjuïc (huge hill overlooking the city). The castle on top has a great view:

We then took the first of two cable cars down to a little park cafe for lunch. Found some big slides for sliding:

After checking out a scenic overlook, we took a second cable car down to a funicular train to get down the mountain. Like I said, lots of public transit.

July 20: Maritime Museum and Boat Rides
Headed out in the morning to see the historic boatyards of Barcelona which are now a maritime museum for the city. Apparently Barcelona first established itself as a navel power back in the 1200s by building warships and trading vessels. Who knew?

From there it was a brisk walk across the street to take a 90 minute harbor cruise. I donned my boating hat in anticipation. The boat ride itself was very relaxing. Meera especially seemed to enjoyed sitting at the front of the boat:

 

Hola a todos! We are now settling in as true barcelonés and starting to fall into the pace of life here in the city. That means late starts to the day (wake up ~10AM), siestas in the afternoon and then staying up until midnight following a late dinner. Even the kiddos are getting into the act with bedtimes after 10PM 😱😱. Soren seems to be adjusting fine with mile long hikes (sprints?) home after dinner:

We all agree that the Barcelona life is great. I was actually in this city three times prior to this trip: once in 2006, once in 2008 and two short trips in 2009. It has been interesting to revisit some of the places from my previous forays to the city. For example, here is me on Monjuic in 2006 and then 2018:

  

Notice how the second picture includes two additional children and one additional wife. I’ll be interested to see what the next photo looks like in 2028.

On to the rundown…

July 14: Beach Day
Our lazy/leisurely habits rubbed off on Tony/Robby/Ashley (henceforth T/R/A) and we got off to a very late start. Got to the beach around noon and it was HOT ☀🔥! We rented some beach umbrellas and proceeded to claim as much real estate as possible. Meera and Swathi took the opportunity to nap while Soren got into the sand.

We somehow don’t have photographic evidence, but this was also Soren’s first time in the ocean. He LOVED it. We do have photographic evidence that Meera’s first beach visit resulted in many naps. The day ended with us heading home for order-in sushi while T/R/A got dinner at a renowned paella place in Barcelonetta.

July 15: Churros, Park Güell and Gracia
After a failed attempt at a Mercat de la Boqueria breakfast (closed Sunday) we stumbled upon a classic Barcelona breakfast: churros and hot chocolate 😋! We spent the remainder of the morning wandering around the Gothic Quarter before splitting with T/R/A while they went shopping for gifts. Soren enjoyed running the automobile-free alleys of the Gothic Quarter:

We then regrouped with T/R/A and headed to Park Güell. You pretty much have to visit the park if you are in the city. We had to box out some V aggressive tourists but we got the mandatory photo along with some other good ones of the park.

After that, I took the crew on a classic stroll (maybe a death march) through the Gracia neighborhood of the city. It is a really nice residential area with lots of quiet squares, shady avenues and parks. From there we got tapas that won a big award for a foie gras tapas last year. I can confirm that it was delicious.

July 16: Science Center and Gracia again
T/R/A parted ways with us first thing in the morning. Soren was a bit confused and was asking about Tony after they left😢😢. To make up for the loss, I took Soren to the Barcelona Science Center:

We then went back to Gracia and bought Meera some European toys. Came back and kept our tapas kick at a nice local place nearby.

July 17: Pool day (after a failed Modernism tour)
Started the day off super ambitious with a planned walk of some of the famous spots showing off the modernism architecture of the city. We got lazy after about 45 minutes and hopped on a bus to a fancy hotel with a nice pool. Meera loves the water almost as much as Soren!

Nothing much else to report here as we pretty much just lazed about for the whole day. The kids finished swimming and got cozy with their towels:

Soren promptly proceeded to pass out in his towel. We went out after the pool for more tapas. Tapas is a theme now. A very good theme.

All righty, until next time!!

We departed Porto and flew with Vueling Airlines to arrive in Barcelona. Porto airport was small, new looking and convenient! Soren decided he was quite tired by the trip while walking around the Barcelona airport and decided to take a quick rest…as Meera looked on incredulously.

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Around 1pm, we settled into our AirBnB, a 3 bedroom apartment we shared with Roby, Ashley and Tony. We then found a quick take-out spot that made both doner kebabs and chicken curry (for Soren), so we placed our orders and…waited…and waited. We got our first taste of Spanish time sensibilities. Finally our food was done and we returned to our apartment to relax, eat, and plan out our evening. We walked over to Placa Catalunya and started our tour of Las Ramblas, a long pedestrian street walk/fair. In the middle of it is La Boqueria, a large market where people sell, well, everything and anything you could want! Food! Juices! Street Food! Restaurant quality food! Groceries! Spices! Nuts! Souvenirs! We walked around a bit and I picked up some nuts to have handy around the house. Here are Clark and Meera checking out the Mercat:

I then found a pretty cool restaurant for us to relax in and enjoy one of many delicious meals in Barcelona. This is the Fabrica Moritz Barcelona:

By the end we were pretty tired and sweaty from the hot Spanish day, and we retired to our home and settled in for the night. Spain runs on a slightly different schedule than, well, the rest of the world, and we all wanted to adjust accordingly. Essentially, everyone wakes up late, eats breakfast at home, and may go out for lunch around 1 or 2. Most restaurants and places of business simply shut down in the mid-afternoon for siesta time. Yes, for nap time. Wait until 4:30PM for businesses to re-open. This is my kind of country!! Everyone knows I LOVE a good nap. Tapas and snacks are enjoyed in the early evening hours. Dinner can be anytime from 9-11pm (later if you are young and cool) and if it is the weekend, many places stay open well into the morning hours. It is not unusual to find playgrounds full of children and their parents at around 8-9pm. We often lose track of time here and find ourselves wandering home close to midnight.

July 12

We explored the beautiful Gothic Quarter of Barcelona and saw several beautiful cathedrals and buildings.

There were also plenty of interesting stores for the children to explore, like an entire store dedicated to toy ducks. Yes, the kind you take into your bath with you. Exciting stuff!

Everyone enjoyed our extremely long stroll through the Gothic Quarter and into the Revel area:

We topped off the trip with a visit to a hip coffee shop, and this is the last picture I took with my Iphone 7+

As most readers of this blog already know, my phone was then stolen. We took a bus back home and Meera started crying (unusual for her) and the bus was kind of crowded and I was distracted from my belongings for about 2 minutes. I won’t go into the gory details, but lesson learned. Always secure belongings first then attend to crying baby. The extra 10 seconds does not change anything!!

We then relaxed at home for a bit and went out to a restaurant to eat Paella and continue to enjoy our night despite the unfortunate events from earlier in the evening. I was grateful that we were all healthy, happy, and had our passports and wallets intact. Barcelona is too awesome to be bummed for long!

July 13

Meera turns 6 months old!! She is really an awesome baby to travel with and we are so happy she is part of our family.

Clark found this awesome Alice-In-Wonderland type French Cafe in Barcelona. Weird huh? It was beautiful. Soren got to celebrate with chocolate cake. Meera decided to nap.

In the evening we had tickets for La Sagrada Familia, the most quirky and beautiful Cathedral I have ever visited and the #1 tourist attraction in possibly all of Spain. It has been under construction for about a century and will be done in the next decade, apparently, but who knows? The original architect is Gaudi, who has also created many of the other landmark attractions around Barcelona. It is just amazing. How does a toddler visit this place?

By finding a nearby playground and plopping down in the sand, followed by a full on sand bath, really for no apparent reason, 5 minutes prior to our appointment for entering said historical and cultural/religious landmark. You can see the cathedral in the background. Roby and Ashley graciously took some good pictures of all of us. Clark pointed out that La Sagrada Familia does kind of look like a bizarre giant sand castle…

By the way, ALL of the playgrounds in Barcelona have a sandy ground, so if you are bringing young children to this glorious city, please also bring sand toys. Needless to say we bought some here and Tony the toddler already had some from his escapades in Cascais, Portugal a week earlier.

Having exhausted ourselves, we ate a light dinner at a cafe and headed home.

Apologies dear readers for the delayed updates! We’ve been progressing our adventure at velocidad máxima for the past week and haven’t had a minute to sit and write. For this post we’ll pick up in Porto, where we last left our intrepid protagonists, and follow along until they depart for Barcelona…

I got my first impression of Porto right after returning our beloved Mini Clubman at the Europcar station near of the the Pont da Arrabida. I walked out of the station and right onto an esplanade viewing the Ribeira:

Quite dramatic. I soon got my second impression of the city: Porto is very hilly as I learned in attempting to walk home from the station

Another important piece of context is that we were joined on our second day in Porto by our wonderful friends Roby, Ashley and little Tony. Roby was Swathi’s co-fellow in at UPMC in Pittsburgh and we have become good friends over the past three years. They will be with us through Porto and into the first five days of Barcelona:

On to our itinerary in Porto!

July 8: Road trip from Guimarães to Porto
Our final day with our trusted Mini Clubman 😢. Spent the morning packing our bags and completing the 45 minute drive to Porto. We passed the time listening to You’re Welcome from the Moana soundtrack on repeat.

Upon arrival, we stopped by the Castelo do Queijo and the Parque da Cidade do Porto before checking into our AirBnB apartment. The apartment was HUGE! It turned out to be a penthouse with a long hallway for Soren to zoom around at top speed.

The final important development of the day was discovering Churrasqueira Icarai on our evening walk. This was a little grilled meats spot that had the best roast chicken and hot sauce. It was so good we went back for all three nights of our stay:

July 9: Porto
Spent most of the morning going back to the Europcar to convince them not be silly about our car (Mini Clubman) return. I spent a good portion of the time with Meera strapped in the baby carrier glaring at the poor attendant. Sorry Europcar attendant. You turned out to be all right in the end.

After that we walked the Villa Nova de Gaia side of the Douro river. This is where all of the Port Wine  export houses set up shop. It also has a nice riverside walkway:

From there we took a cable car up to the Jardim do Morro to go exploring the playground. After the park, we had a quick lunch before taking the Funicular dos Guindais home. After lunch Swathi and Meera went home while the boys rode a historic tram and the subways in circles for two hours. Soren was very amused.

Final part of the day was spent at home hosting Roby, Ashley and Tony in our apartment for dinner. We got to watch the boys reunite after a few weeks apart since Pittsburgh. It was heartwarming until they figured out that they could increase their destructive powers as a team. Still, good times.

July 9: Porto
Got off to a bit of a late start. I led everyone on a 25 minute tram trip to a historic part of town with the “worlds most beautiful bookstore” and some historic churches. Little did I know these sites were actually a 5 minute walk from our apartments. Not sure how I missed that one 🤷‍♂️

From there we wandered around some nice alleys and plazas  before heading down to the Ribeira  for lunch. We took a “Six Bridges Cruise” to see some more of the city. Soren and I were counting and we only saw five bridges, so something might have been off. Cruise was nice though.

Final part of the day was spent returning to the “worlds most beautiful bookstore” (store was at capacity earlier), the Porto Catherdral, and the beautiful Sao Bento train station:

Final item of the day was, of course, churrasqueira chicken and packing up for next adventure in Spain!

More Porto photos here

 

July 6-8

We absolutely loved staying at the Pousada in Guimarães. In Portugal, there is a “small luxury hotel” chain wherein a company, Pestana hotel group, converted old castles and monasteries to, well, small luxury hotels! It is a truly wonderful and unique experience, something neither Clark nor I had done before. I was craving a stay in a Pousada and some time in the countryside since so much of our trip is city-based, and Clark wanted to check out the Duoro Valley.

It felt kind of surreal staying at the Pousada. The pictures certainly do not do it justice. The monastery is around 1000 years old and updated through the centuries. They preserved a great part of it and the rest updated for modern hotel living. Everyone was quite nice. The main restaurant had some of the best Portugese food we have eaten to date, which is saying a lot, because generally I am not a fan of Portuguese food. The gardens were extensive, beautiful and …well organized! I could imagine Gregor Mendel in such a monastery hanging around his garden. Science is after all mostly organization and painful repetition and 0.01% exciting discovery time. I could see how a monk would be well suited for such arduous tasks.

I tried to impress Soren with botany when we discovered some giant mushrooms. He quietly contemplated our discovery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Duoro Valley is the premier wine making region of Northern Portugal that lies along the Duoro River which empties at the city of Porto. Port wine and red table wines are made here. For Clark’s birthday on July 7 we took a trip to a small “Quinta” and went on a 20 minute tour (yes with the children in tow!!) followed by Port wine tasting and a small lunch. We discovered there is such a thing as Rose Port, which is delicious! The drive to and back was gorgeous. Northern Portugal is full of deep mountains, rivers, and steppes with grapes, orange trees and olive trees. Everyone talks about how the Duoro Valley is pretty but actually it seems most of the area is remote and beautiful. As we had to drive on highways with top speed in our Mini Clubman, we could not capture the beauty. Alas. Google it!

July 8:

We packed up yet again and this time headed to Porto, the rivaling major city in Portugal to Lisbon. Which is better according to us? Next blog post…

Olá a todos! What an action packed past few days it has been. We pretty much walked all of Lisbon in 2 days, gorged on pastis da nata and drove half-way across Portugal in a fancy new Mini Clubman. And we are still going strong!

The REAL highlight of the past few days though has been witnessing the friendship of Soren and little Arya. Since we started sharing an apartment with Rehka, Adi and Arya in Lisbon, the two little ones pretty much spend all their time playing and chasing each other around. They seem to like all the same games and somehow don’t fight at all. Amazing.

I’ll get into the details of Lisbon in a minute, but before I do I would like to emphasize that we covered a LOT of ground with the young’uns (in tow) during our two Lisbon days. Highlights:

July 3 Lisbon
Morning Swathi was in the throws of her illness and had to spend the morning at home resting up. The rest of us (Adi, Rehka et al) took the historic Tram 28 from through the Alfama to the end of the line at Martim Moniz. It was…crowded:

After a quick Uber ride back to the Castello S. Jorge, we wandered the narrow alleys and vertiginous staircases back to our AirBnB to collect Swathi.

Took a 15 minute walk to the TimeOut market for a taste of Lisbon. The food was delicious, but he young’uns only wanted to eat french fries and strawberry ice cream 🤦. From there we explored the Belem neighborhood. Saw the Jeronimos Monestary and of course the Tour de Belem. It was impressive, but bright:

July 4 Lisbon
Time has been really flying and I honestly forgot that it was the 4th of July. After our marathon day on July 3, we took the morning off lazed about the apartment. By lazed I mean, spent 2 hours eating breakfast and then watching helplessly as the toddlers dismantled the apartment. RIP Lisbon apartment. RIP.

Around noon, we headed out on our trusty Tram 28 to the Campo de Ourique Market for lunch. From there it was off on another marathon hike from to the Jardim de Estrella, Avenida de Liberdade, Acensor de Gloria, Barrio Alto, and the Elevador de Santa Justa. We were a little tired at the end and to reward ourselves by having dinner at an Indian restaurant. I’ll admit, we were a little tired at the end of the day. Morale was high though:

July 5 Lisbon –> Guimarães
Rented a car, threw our bags in the back and bid our dear travel companions adieu. Headed north out of Lisbon making towards our destination of Guimarães. Stopped at Conimbraga along the way for a terrace lunch and some roman ruins. Soren emphasized that he does NOT like romans.

At the end of the day we made it to our destination: a monastery that now serves as a hotel. It is incredibly well preserved and feels like we stepped back in time a few hundred years.

July 6 Guimarães
After a leisurely breakfast, we spent some time exploring the monastery grounds. The property is quite extensive and includes some nice cloisters, azulejos, grottos and wooded trails. One of our favorite places was an overlook of the city:

We headed to the historic city center for lunch and then the ladies headed home for a rest. Swathi is still recovering from illness after all. The boys headed up to the top of the mountain overlooking the city via cable car. At the top there is a park with trails, caves and most importantly a trolley!

More photos of our adventures from the past few days here.

Sintra is a magical town located on top of some hills/mountainous area full of romantic castles and cobblestones and extremely steep hills. Add onto that the fact that the 3 year olds who are accompanying us on this trip, Arya and Soren, are both quite prone to motion sickness/vomiting in general. This is indeed not a trip for the weak of heart. Or stomach, as it were. But onwards we went, barf bags in hand…I won’t go into the gory details.

This is the main one everyone visits, Pena Palace:

The toddlers were often tired and wanted “up!”

 After we descended back to the entrance, we found this adorable picnic area to take a break and regain our strength prior to castle#2. Meera was her usual adorable self so I couldn’t help but snap this photo.

 

 

 

 

 

Then we hit up the Moorish Castle, which is older, 10-12th century timeline. We were quite high up!!

Because that apparently still was not enough activity for the children, they spent the evening jumping on a trampoline back at the hotel. Therefore all in all, good times were had by all, just at different points of the day!

The next day we checked out of our hotel and headed into Lisbon, where we will be for a few days. We caught the Brazil-Mexico game on the town square and of course everyone here was rooting for Brazil! Happy they won!

Then we went on a leisurely walk to dinner. There are a lot of streets just for pedestrians where we staying downtown, so it is great fun to explore:

More Lisbon exploration awaits us. Unfortunately I have come down with a bad sore throat, but the rest of the gang is doing great and are out exploring the Alfama area as I catch up on blogging…

Greeting from Cascais! Or should I say Saudação de Cascais.  Cascais is a little beach-side resort town outside of Lisbon. We’ve been told Lisboetas have been escaping city life to camp our here for centuries. We decided that after the move and Denmark blitz it would make sense to take it easy for a few days. So far, Cascais has more than delivered in the relaxation department.

First off, our resort has been outstanding. Swathi found a resort that caters to families, so they have all sorts of amenities for children: three different children’s pools, plentiful of playgrounds/toy rooms, a man in a fox costume that makes the rounds at breakfast.

There is also a Kids Club where where kids can play games and do activities sans parents, but Soren unsurprisingly found that a bit scary. The first day he cried until he got a bloody nose. The next day he relaxed a bit and ended up having a great time. On to the rundown of the past couple days…

June 28…arrival
Got into the resort around 5 and headed straight to the pool. Soren learned about hot tubs, saunas and steam rooms. After a quick bath we had a very mediocre dinner at the hotel resturant. Mediocre for adults that is. They somehow nailed the kids buffet with plain pasta and over-steamed broccoli that Soren wolfed down on his own. Even Meera was eyeing the food enviously:

June 29…City of Cascais
After a failed attempt at introducing Soren to Kids club (i.e. bloody nose incident), we escaped as a family to the city of Cascais to explore. It is a tiny and one might even say “quaint”.

After a lovely afternoon of strolling the cobbled streets, we found ourselves stranded in the rain tying in vain to hail an Uber. In our distressed state, we forgot to take a photo of the four of us standing pathetically under an inadequate awning trying to avoid the rain. We listened to Disney songs to maintain morale.

June 30…Our friends arrive
Our dear friends Rheka and Adi, plus their adorable daughter Arya (short for Aishwarya), arrived today! As we awaited their arrival, we took a short hike to a seaside restaurant for lunch:

Once they arrived, the fun really began! After some initial shyness (from Soren), they kids got the party started with trampolines, pool time and mac & cheese. We headed to dinner soon after:

 

Cascais photos here

 

Veijle, Denmark (June 27)
Veijle was interesting in that it truly felt like we were in Denmark. We ordered off of Danish only menus and many people greeted me in Danish or would respond in Danish even when I talked in English! This is not the case at all in Copenhagen.

We took the speed train back from Vejle to Copenhagen and were all in good spirits by the time we returned. Our children stopped expelling various bodily fluids and Clark and I enjoyed plenty of caffeine and water. What more could you ask for! Our train ride led Soren and I to feel quite famished, so we picked up a quick snack at our favorite little grocery (been there twice, so favorite) in the train station and started eating on the steps out of desperation:

Then we walked around the city again, and we walked through the beautiful area around the Danish Jewish museum main library:

We then headed to Christiania, which was kind of disappointing. I think it was partly deterioration of the place over the past few decades and partly our own fatigue from the previous night and partly being grown boring professional adults with children which led us to kind of quickly walk through it- we probably missed parts of it. Who knows? Not us apparently.

We then returned to Pedja and Ditte’s home for the last night in Denmark. It was another long and trying night as Inga was teething and Meera was still sick, but they are just so totally adorable it is hard to be bitter or upset.

Cascais, Portugal (June 28)
We headed off to Portugal and had no trouble with the transportation as Pedja graciously dropped us off for our 4hr flight to Lisbon. And now we are in Portugal!! We are relaxing in Cascais Portugal as we write…

More photos from June 27-29 in Denmark here.